


Hanging by a Breath (Whumptober2020 #1)

by medaeus (medivhthecorrupted)



Series: Whumptober 2020 [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Gen, Trigger Warning: Lynching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-28
Updated: 2020-09-28
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:08:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26704987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/medivhthecorrupted/pseuds/medaeus
Summary: Master Dooku struggles to breathe as he tries to remember how he got where he is, and tries to prepare himself to become one with the Force.
Relationships: Rael Averross & Dooku
Series: Whumptober 2020 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1943407
Kudos: 7





	Hanging by a Breath (Whumptober2020 #1)

**Author's Note:**

> Although I have the TW: Lynching tag, there is no vivid description of it actually happening. This story is set as an introspection -while- he's hanging. If that is still disturbing to you, please skip.

“I did it for you!” the words seeped sluggishly through his memory like sap slowly dripping down the trunk of a tree, trapping his thoughts in an endless tumble of pain, as constricting and choking as the rope around his neck was. He could not cling to a memory for long, his mind clouded by the lack of oxygen; but those he could grasp long enough he only knew of confusion, anger, and betrayal.

There had been a mission, that much he could remember. His young Padawan, Rael Averross, had accompanied him despite his misgivings in bringing a fresh student along. He couldn’t remember why he ended up agreeing or if he even had and the young boy with the thick Outer Rim accent simply just hadn’t tagged along on his own. He couldn’t remember what the mission had been about, but it had turned dangerous and deadly. There had been a colonist, or was it a native, that had helped them. Then pain and fear. He remembered panicking and Rael went missing. Then darkness.

A breeze brushed against his numbing body. The pain of whatever had happened was slowly fading as his body prepared to shut down. He remembered struggling as he was hoisted off the ground, his arms bound behind his back and his lightsaber gone. He couldn’t visualize the faces of his assailants but one of them, a woman was pleading for the others to stop.

“I did it for you!” vibrated in his skull, the memory shouting at the woman. He briefly cracked his bloodshot eyes open and saw the world in darkness and the stars dashed behind gnarling branches and other bodies that were swinging with the wind. He didn’t know who they were or why they were there. He suspected it had to do with the voice, the angry voice that sought validation from the woman.

His head began to hurt from the vibration and he briefly wondered why it lingered after he had forgotten the memory. It didn’t matter anymore. His struggling breathes were growing less frequent and weaker with each one. The rope around him felt tighter as the minutes passed and his body was getting colder, though the latter was probably because night had fallen, and the temperatures were dropping.

He was dying, that much he knew despite the fogginess of asphyxiation. The world before him swayed in a blurry mess and no matter how hard he tried to focus on the Force, it would not come when summoned. He didn’t think he had been restrained by Force suppressants; he didn’t think the locals had access to anything like that. No, he simply just could not focus long enough to grasp onto the tendrils of the Living Force.

As he swayed and bumped into another body, a native he absently thought, his mind wandered to his padawan and what would become of the young Jedi. Would his killers seek and hunt him down, drag him kicking and screaming to the same tree and truss him up alongside his dead master? He prayed to the Force that Rael would find a way to escape this hellhole.

A choked breath escaped him, what little of the sweet air he could intake prolonged his suffering. He should prepare himself and let go instead of holding out on the slim chance that he would be rescued. A Jedi did not struggle when Death approached. He accepted his Fate with the dignity and grace of a being that belonged to the Force.

Except there would be no dignity or grace for him. His killers made sure he would die in the most inglorious and undignified way possible.

A memory came to him then, of natives being hunted by colonists. The long-limbed and furry aliens were not in the wrong, a fact he and Rael had been able to figure out. Someone, the angry voice, had started the whole conflict. Something about protecting against a falsehood and the natives had become a scapegoat.

Why couldn’t he remember?!

Another choked gasp and black spots began to fill his vision. The vibrating headache persisted, and the world still swayed with the breeze of the cold wind. He closed his eyes once more and tried again to focus on centering himself and accepting his fate. He wanted so much to make his betrayer pay for this, if not for revenge then at least so Rael did not have to suffer in the same way.

Minutes passed and a few more struggling breaths, he was certain now that he was ready to become one with the Force. He couldn’t think on much else, his mind too deprived of oxygen to focus. He readied himself to stop struggling and simply let go.

He didn’t take another struggled breath after that and waited for darkness to finally claim him.

His world suddenly exploded in a brilliant white and then a kaleidoscope of color. Pain shot up from his legs and then side, and the constricting tightness around his neck lessened. Instinctively he drew in a breath and then another, and another until he started coughing and inhaled fresh gulps of air. He opened his eyes to stare up at the hanging bodies in various states of decay.

There was an empty rope, frayed at the end and gently slapping against a jagged piece of broken armor that one of his dead neighbors had worn in battle and in death. He blinked at it for several long moments while he got his breathing under control and the oxygen-rich blood rushed back to his brain.

It took him longer to understand what was happening.

Slowly he rolled onto his side and then sat up onto his knees. His arms were still bound behind him and the noose around his neck was still tight, but it no longer had the weight of gravity pulling on it and slowly asphyxiating him to death. He finally realized that either by a stroke of luck or the Will of the Force, his rope had been sawed through and snapped, freeing him, and staying his execution.

He took a moment to let his body recover before he dared to stand and stumble away from the gruesome grave. It took him another moment to focus long enough to call upon the Force and free himself of the leather bonds binding his hands. Once they were free, he dug at the rope around his neck and tore it off with such force and ferocity, he nearly lost his balance as vertigo threatened to blacken his vision.

_Still asphyxiated_ , he realized and stumbled his way through the sage brush and rocks, and gray clay that was commonplace on this world. He looked back at the tree and the dead that still hung, anger and regret wrestling for control over his state of mind. Angry that the colonists would do this to sentients, regret that there was little he could do to stop it.

There was also relief. Relief that he would not be joining these victims in the Force and relief that his padawan was not there either. He reached out for that brilliant spark in the Force and found Rael somewhere to the far east. He did not sense the boy was in danger and decided that he was with the natives.

West was the colony.

He straightened his posture and drew upon the Force to give him the strength to walk and turned east, his student the brilliant beacon in the night for him. He would reunite with Rael and together with the natives they would take back this world and force the colonists into leaving or accepting the natives.

And he would kill the man who had hanged him. 


End file.
